Living in Japan has never been easier. When I first moved to Japan bottled water was unusual and diet coke didn’t exist. Of course, I lived in rural Japan, but even in the country these things are widely available now. Living in the city has always been more convenient, and a lot of things are available here. There are more and more organic restaurants emerging and a few organic foods available at some stores. There are vegetarian restaurants and a few macrobiotic restaurants. There are stores like Costco, as well as a wide variety of English books, English movies, English CDs and DVDs available. More and more western goods become available daily, but even so, there are many things from home that are difficult to get. That is why I love the internet. Sites like Amazon. jp where you can buy English books cheaply, but without the heavy shipping costs that you would pay if you bought from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca. Food from Costco is available at TheFlyingPig.com. The site doesn’t have everything that the store has, but it still makes life easy. I saved my personal favourite for last. This website has been my saviour at times. The Foreign Buyers Club, www.fbcusa.com, has almost everything from home that you can think of. All of the vitamins I can’t buy, turkey and candy canes at Christmas, Hallowe’en candies and costumes…..basically, whatever you miss from home, the foreign buyers club has. Except Cheese wiz ….Ah well, can’t have everything.
Carol,
Great post! Thank you for the tips on the various sites. As we move toward the holiday season, we all get our cravings for those large Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, but by living in Japan I have trained myself to savor smaller portions. That and the simple daily exercise provided by my normal commute have allowed me to downsize myself a little. I have a little further to go but life in Japan is certainly good and helps me to be more healthy. Enjoy!
Al (SSE Okamoto)
Thanks Al,
I get to fulfill my Christmas cravings at home with my family in Canada this year…But during holidays that i have spent in Japan, I was able to put together a somewhat reasonable christmas dinner with the help of the Foreign Buyer’s Club…of course, they could only provide the food, they couldn’t cook it for me….another one of Japan’s most interesting challenges … How to fit a turkey in a microwave????
I’m glad that you’ve been able to downsize…i could really use some of that…for the last few months I’ve been upsizing….I don’t have very far to go to work…..